[_v7gu]

The unholy trinity of upvotes/downvotes/karma creates some "echo chamberishness" (if I have to put it nicely) and pressure on posting as users tend to use the power to punish "wrongthink" instead of low effort posts. I think this behavior stems from that.

Having an option to relive the users of this pressure (like enabling a little anonymous posting, or adding distinctions between the downvote types) might incentivize them to drop this unwanted behavior.

[PaulStatezny]

100% agree. There is a very nonzero amount of "punishing wrongthink with downvotes" on HN. (Even if the post follows posting guidelines.)

As long as the community continues this kind of behavior, we'll have people spamming new accounts.

[dang]

Usually there's something else wrong with a downvoted comment besides just "wrongthink". Since people don't like being downvoted, or seeing something they agree with being downvoted, they tend to reach for "wrongthink" a little too readily as the explanation.

Certainly there are unfairly downvoted comments, but users tend to give those corrective upvotes after a while: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....

[ChainOfFools]

What are your thoughts on the meta-moderation system used by Slashdot? That seemed to curb a lot of common brigade abuse and is the one feature I miss most about other discussion systems.

[Reelin]

Indeed I "correctively upvote" things that I otherwise wouldn't, but whenever I do so I'm frustrated by the rudimentary nature of pretty much all the moderation systems I've come across to date.